Last night I was watching the Boston Bruins vs. New York Islanders NHL playoff game. Midway through the third period, I realized something. Neither the Boston Bruins nor the New York Islanders own their team name .com domain name. Bruins.com is owned by GoDaddy (via its NameFind portfolio company) and Islanders.com is owned by CCIN (Michael Castello and David Castello).

It looks like all NHL teams utilize the NHL.com domain name for their websites. However, each team owns its own domain name that forwards to their NHL-based website. For instance, the Boston Bruins website can be found by navigating to BostonBruins.com and the NY Islanders website can be found by navigating to NewYorkIslanders.com.

Several years ago, I took a look at the domain names used by professional sports teams in the four major sports leagues (MLB, NFL, NBA, and NHL). At that time, NHL teams owned the fewest number of team .com domain names at just 25.8%. I thought I would take another look at NHL team domain names to see if anything has changed with respect to team name .com domain names. Here’s what I found:

Domain investors come from different parts of the world and have different backgrounds. Despite this, we all have many traits in common. We are willing to invest hard earned capital into digital assets with the hopes of monetizing them. By and large, domain investors are chasing after the same domain names as other investors. There are a few things that set investors apart from each other.

Losing control of a domain name due to expiration is something every domain registrant should fear. Domain investors tend to have a solid handle on domain name renewals, but the continued flow of solid domain names at expiry auction platforms like GoDaddy Auctions and NameJet illustrate how frequently good domain names expire.

Nick Grossman is a Partner at Union Square Ventures (USV). For many years, Nick operated a blog on his first+last name .IS domain name. .IS is the ccTLD for the country of Iceland. The domain name accidentally expired, and it was grabbed by a third party. Nick was able to register and use NickGrossman.XYZ, but he faced an issue that I don’t recall hearing about in the past:

Newfold Digital is the company that was formed when the Endurance group of companies merged with the Web.com group of companies. Newfold Digital now operates domain investor facing brands like Network Solutions, Register.com, NameJet, Snapnames, BigRock, BuyDomains, and several other brands.

This afternoon, the company introduced a new corporate logo and identity. In addition, a video was shared to introduce people to the Newfold Digital brand, which I embedded below:

More information about the company and its branding can be found in the press release that was shared with me today:

Rally is “a platform for buying & selling equity shares in collectible assets.” From the looks of it, people can make investments on various types of assets, such as sports cards, timepieces, vintage cars, and possibly other collectible assets. The startup, which uses RallyRd.com for its domain name, has raised over $100 million in funding.

According to an article on WWD.com (and also published via Yahoo Finance), Rally just raised its Series B round of funding. I find the market and platform interesting, but the news that might pique the interest of domain investors is that Rally may soon include domain names among the class of assets people can invest in.

Here’s an excerpt from the article that discusses the possible addition of domain names on the Rally platform:

“Looking ahead to intangible assets, the founder said users have been very vocal about what they want to see on the platform — music rights and domain names being among their requests. Five to 10 new asset classes will be added over the coming months.”

I think it has become clear that some domain names are valuable assets. I can see why people might want to offer them for sale in this manner. A major domain name sale requires one entity with the vision and funding to acquire the asset, and offering equity shares in a domain name would open up ownership to a much larger group of investors.

As I recall, there was a company called Fusu that offered fractional domain name ownership and the trading of domain name shares. I don’t recall what happened to that platform, but it does not appear to exist any longer.

If Rally does decide to add domain names to its asset classes, I would imagine the platform could partner with the domain name registrants to sell shares in their domain names, which could then be traded on a public market. I think fractional ownership could add liquidity to the domain name aftermarket and show the value of these assets to other collectors who may not be knowledgeable about domain name values.

There are likely regulatory and other domain name-specific logistical and legal issues that would need to be overcome, but having 9 figures in funding and substantial backing can help ensure these issues are solved.

Unstoppable Domains posted a video interview with Media Options CEO Andrew Rosener that domain investors may want to watch. In the interview, Andrew offered his opinions and insights “about the future of the decentralized web and the potential and utility of blockchain” domain names.

I am not super familiar with any of this, and if you’re in the same position as me, you should read more about this class of domain names on the introduction page on the Unstoppable Domains website.

I do not own/control any blockchain domain names, nor am I actively involved in the crypto space, so I can’t offer an educated opinion on the topic of blockchain domains. I will watch the interview though: